fitz was to great of a powerhitting marksmen who could starch heavys ,he would destroy the game duran within 5 rnds
BIG DEE HERE= Fitzsimmons KOs Duran early and brutally. Fitzsimmons fought the guys he fought and KOed like Tom Sharkey, Jim Corbett, Gus Rulin and Jim Jeffries. Somebody thinks he would be afraid of Duran needs their thought processes rearranged. Fitzsimmons would laugh at Duran before he knocked him the f**k out.
Fitz was around the same size as Iran Barkley with more power,Duran well past his best squeaked by Barkley,still I go for Fitz.
Here you are all alone. Well, you got a friend in me. A qualifier. The Freckled Wonder would beat Duran under the rules of 1890. It was a different sport then requiring different skills and assets. But put that Fitz is a time machine and transport him to February 1989 for a 15 rounder against a modern technician? Ruby would rue the day. I don't like what I see in the film from that period. Never have. I don't like their balance, their tendency to jump back and jump in, their leaning back, their extended arms, etc. In sum, these are pioneers. Corbett looks funny on film. I think that by today standards, he sucks. Then again, perhaps I am merely transposing my disdain for that racist jerk. In sum, they wouldn't do well against modern greats in the modern incarnation of boxing. And there are few, very few, exceptions. Gans looks good. Langford looks damn good. In my opinion, Bob Fitzsimmons has become more Paul Bunyon than a flesh and blood boxer. He is an ATG great, but the belief that he would have cut a swathe among modern MW or LHW greats strikes me as folklore. Tall tales.
Well i knew you were coming. Good thing too. This IMO is a HOF post and i am 100% ++++++ in agreeance. Kudo's
It's like anything though. Kids are more magnetized towards street dancing than classics like the Waltz or the Tango; does not mean they are any less difficult, impressive or technically proficient. Alas, if you had been born in the era you would possess a greater understanding of the ability of the men. Secondly, what have you really seen of these guys to amass a fair judgement? Timing and experience have a habit of uprooting that slicker looking exterior. Fitz is the kinda guy who could be pivoted into a bit of a muddle, but in the end, he'd bring the walls down with something timed to the T. Theoretically, if Bob did tackle Duran, he'd be the attacker he was against Maher/Sharkey and hunt down the smaller man. On paper, it's not pretty. Fitz's balance and understanding of weight distribution is well noted. No amount of him looking sketchy against Corbett under the poor guidance of the earlier kinetoscope, in a fight he was losing (not a good judge of stylistic ability); until he landed the big one should sway a well-read opinion. Not an attack, but what do you think?
I'll personally take Duran by stoppage under modern rules, at his best anyway. What weight would this be fought at?
Neither you nor I are entranced by close-ups and color. In fact, I have commented at length on the disadvantages that old-timers' film have in making comparisons with modern fight films. Hell today we can hear a fighter exhale on film and practically taste the splattered blood. Kids can't differentiate between style and substance. We're not kids here. I don't even like action films, prefering instead film noir, with its character development, deliberate pace, and moody scenes. I've seen every scrap of film that I got my hands on over the past 20 years, and its enough for me to draw a rough line separating the primitive from the modern. I estimate that boxers became more technically proficient by modern standards right around the time that the sport itself evolved into its modern incarnation: the 1920s. The rounds were limited, the rules were changing, etc... boxers began to fight differently, no longer having to prepare for 20 or 45 round endurance contests. I have reserved my criticism to instances where a pioneers are given the benefit of the doubt in H2Hs over modern technicians, keeping in mind that they were essentially involved in a different sport and it is unfair to expect them to adjust to 15 rounds against modern, more evolved fighters who have the advantage of 30 or 50 years of scientific evolution on their side. See, you may be falling into the general problem that I see the pioneers' ESB base regularly fall into and the same one that many at the general forum accuse us all of: automatically deferring to the black and white (or in this case, the dust and the cobwebs). "Timing and experience"? Against whom? Who has Fitz ever faced that was anywhere near as technically efficient and streamlined as Duran? "Slicker looking exterior"? I'm not one to tout the stylists. I find Jones to lack substance inside and outside. I'm talking about the modern technicians -Duran for instance. In his head was about 150 years of boxing experience from Brown and Arcel. It was about as slick as a concussion. It's efficiency and more importantly for this discussion, it is an evolved marvel that we see in fighters like that. My argument boils down to this: The Model T commands respect, but let's not expect it to compete with a Lambourgini.